Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Waking up at HiVolt

Some days, like today, I must rise at an hour where one would normally find me snoozing away merrily in bed. On these unfortunate days, I need a healthy overdose of caffeine. Not too long ago, my good friend Anne and I visited a great place for a coffee infusion, especially early in the morning.

Opened a few months ago by Benji Lee (who also owns The Saint just down the road), HiVolt Coffee is a cool new cafe situated on a funky corner at St. Mary and Sophie Wright Place. The cafe is housed in a building that once was a seafood restaurant and the cool porthole windows still remain. HiVolt has a modern, sleek and clean design on the inside, making it highly inviting and not too focused on catering to one group of coffee snobs or another.

Anne was following a paleo diet at the time and the folks at HiVolt were happy to accommodate. They used almond milk in her Chai while I ordered a delicious cappuccino (with whole milk) brewed from Counter Culture Coffee. We sat down, sipped our beverages and waited patiently for our orders to arrive.

Anne got a Chimi Beef Salad, mixed greens and tomatoes topped with slow-roasted chuck, a perfectly poached egg and lots of chimichurri sauce. I chose their simple house salad with mixed greens, avocado, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers and a tasty quinoa spinach cake served on the side. Everything was so fresh and scrumptious, we gobbled the salads gleefully and moved on to a couple of sweets.

Anne chose an interesting seed bar bound by raw honey and I tried a gluten-free, Mexican Chocolate donut, simply because I didn't believe it was possible. Although the donut was rather dry, the spicy chocolate flavor was all there and I had no trouble washing it down with my coffee. Anne's seed bar turned out to be fabulous, crunchy and sweet, yet far more filling than either of us imagined.

Hivolt Coffee on Urbanspoon

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